Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1887-09-11
1.-THE CLEVER FELLOW"
HUMOROUS SKETCH OF A WBLL-KNOWN
CHARACTER
The Man Who Is EysrybOdyS Friend Bat
His Own-A Familiar Character as he
is Everywhere Found
1HDQny JOarIldl.

: habitat is the country village. III you
should go cunning for him in the winter
YOU would find him in the village store
which kept the best fire. If you went
, trapping for him you would set your trap
in the cracker barrel. If you wanted TO
creep up and catch him in the summer
YOU would find him on salt barrel IN
} front of store on the south side OF the
street If it did not rain. Summer or win
ter you will find him smoking cheap to-
bacco in a clay pipe, unless it be election
time, and then you will find him smoking
a cigar which would blister tomato can.
He carries his hands in his pockets. His
trousers are worn out around the delta
He gets his hair cut 50 seldom that when
it is cut there is wide margin Of pallor
which makes him look as though he had
long run of fever Why do we call him a
clever fellow? Because he never hurt
ANYBODY He never stirred around and
got the start OF anybody and made big
trade He never gets interested in politics
and argues until some one wants to destroy
hun off the earth. His information on gen.
eral subjects is large and comprehensive.
He is the village and suburban directory.
He remembers when the mercury went
down 10 25 once before. 1t WAS January
%, 1863. The snow was four feet deep
that winter, and lay on the ground till
April.
He is authority on the genealogy of
every family in the village. He will take
out bis pipe, reach around and scratch his
back, and say: Jim Smiths first wife was
Simmons. Come up from Solsyille way.
The Simmonses that kept the tavern, and
the oldest boy fit in the Mexican war. He
hadn't but one leg and got pension and
belonged to the Methodist church, and
boarded mostly at old Ripper Browns;
an he peddled essences an thread an sus-
penders, an he'd wart on his nose. /"
Thus he can 90 on for hours and give you
solid facts about every family in the vi
cinity.
In the romantic realm of love he rules as
a very cupid devoid of bow aud arrows,
and clothed in suit of blue Jeans and
a stale smell of tobacco. Would yOu know
who took AIaminta out riding, or who
pulled down the blinds at Belinda's abode,
You must consult our hero. Many and
rich are the jokes he cracks from his throne
on the Goldfish box at the store, and hot are
the bushes he evokes on the cheek OF the
adolescent youth.
He is handy and willing TO help every
body only himself. Is . cellar being dug,
there you may find him with his hands in
his pockets, his back against tree and a
pipe in his mouth, helping to dig cellar
Wisely and carefully does he expectorate
every time shovelful of dirt falls ut his
feet. Has the merchant cask of molasses
to roll into the cellar, then on the long
rope, away back out in the middle Of the
road, you will find the clever fellow with
his hands out of his pocket and his pipe
laid away, ready TO lower on the long n pc,
and if he gets partially asleep and the rope
Jerks him forward ON his nose it will add
interest to the scene and make the village
look lively.
He is also great when horse or COW is
sick. He always has a recipe for sick
horse He suggests salt, or soap, or bleed
lug VI VI ~
pound of soda. You never saw such will
ing fellow, and the gravestOne peddier or
drummer who owns the sick horse is so
grateful that he wants to knock the clever
fellow through the side of the barn. He
will sit up all night with sick COW and
smoke, and the cow generally dies.
His ideas on art are more than twenty
laps ahead of Raphael and Phidias He
comes out strong when somebody is having
a house painted. He will help carry the
ladder and mix the paints, and then sit on
the top board Of the fence across the way
and roll out whole treatise on the har
mony of colors. Everybody in the village
calls on him for help He carries the paste
when the circus bills are putup He bosses
the digging of the hole when the Republic
can and Democratic poles are respectively
put up. He gets an ear blown to rags and
his face full of powder firing the anvil on
1.-THE Fourth" In fact, he is indispensable
everywhere except at home.
He is not a general and sweeping success
at home. His ideas on art have not ellmin-
ated the straw hats and old coats from the
windows at home. Good Judge of archi-
lecture rs he is, he yet conveys his smoke
out of his house through a six-iuch stove
pipe in the roof A very prophet in his ad-
vice TO children, his own poor brats 90
barefoot until their feet look like alligator
hand bags. Handy to help everybody else,
his own wife splits up the woodshed door
to cook his dinner, and when he gets back
to his seat on the salt barrel and COM
mences, in epicurean style, dissertation
on chicken salad. you will see crumbs of
corn bread in his whiskers.
!, For this clever fellow with all his clever
ness does not get rich. He has too much
to attend to. He has no time. The in
terests of the whole village rest on him and
his personal affairs must suffer. He is al
ways turning grindstOne to sharpen some
one eise's axe. He is like a lost dog
ready to bite for any one who will set him
on. He is the eternal contradiction of such
valuable proverbs, for he is an early bird
who never gotta worm. He is al ways busy,
but never making cent.
He has shown himself friendly and has
not helpful friend in the world He
thinks the village could not exist if he
were TO be taken away, and yet more
money could be raised to bury him than to
bay him suit Of clothes. Some prejudiced
persons say they would like to see Chang,
the Chinese giant, put on pair of No Is
boots and give the good-natured fellow a
kicking that would telescope him like a
concertina.
But love these men. / love to see
them come out in spring and roost on the
hotel or store steps and lie and mingle
their horse notes with the sounds of the
frogs and birds. They come out with the
leaves and other beautiful things, but they
do not fall with the leaves. Oh, no; they
come in and sit by the stove. Young man,
you had better die young and leave your gol-
den hair to be braided into watch chains and
let people brag about what you might have
been than to grow up and be called "a
clever fellow" Woe unto you when all
men speak we'll of you.
If had got to be medicine ! would
rather be tartar emetic than castor oil.